I had an idea so I decided to try an experiment. What if I was stuck on a desert island with a laptop with Bryce and Wings as my only graphics apps? When I wanted some high-resolution bitmaps to help texture my models, how would I make them without PS, or PSP? I decided to see if I could make decent looking hullplates and greebles using only Bryce. The extra benefit of the method I used means that I have a decent-looking foreground set piece left over for close ups of a section of hull in an animation. I create the bitmaps by making a square document(512,or 1024pz) and rendering the plates from a top view. I could also add some lettering or numbers to the hull if I added Wings' aid. My question so far is, how am I doing?

IMHO, not bad at all !!! :) On the side note: Laptops do not work that good in the desert, and make sure you bring a truckload of batteries with ya, trust me you gonna need it, been on islands like that before :P

Lol, very true Kemal! The only laptop I know that likes heat is a cat. ;-) I made this heightmap by moving Bryce primitives and 2d squares around and assigning them different shades of the default gray material. Then I make a square document and render from top view, viola, instant heightmap.Oh, and I disable sun shadows in the sky lab, very important.

Then you can take that setup you made the heightmap with and re-assign new textures to make a bitmap you can apply over the top of your terrain. I could do something more elaborate, but I thought this illustrated the idea at least.

I'm wondering why you didn't use an altitude render...does this method give sharper results?

edit to add - though an advantage of your method would be that you could add different bump-maps to individual bits prior to the initial rendering, that would be carried over into the terrain :^) Duh! Re-read your description again, and understand what you mean now.

Message edited on: 11/03/2004 03:23

If I'm on a desert island, I think my first concern would be; "Ginger or Maryanne?" Personally, I'm a Maryanne kinda guy... Nice job!

Looks great but your killing me with all these new terms you keep throwing out there, GREEBLES? Am I the only person who's never heard of them or have a clue what they are. I'm guessing they are something on that hull of yours which looks very convincing. Are they anywhere near a nurnie? ;P

I'm with Ang on this. What's a Greeble? Nice images BTW.

Message edited on: 11/03/2004 06:28

Who cares? Maryanne! Maryanne!

Simple, a greeble is the same as a nurnie :)

greebles are all the doo-dads and watchamacallits on the outside of a thingamajig... usually a space thingamajig, but sometimes architectural doohickeys are greebled too... and don't confuse your thingamajig with a thingamabob... that'll get you into some trouble...

Message edited on: 11/03/2004 08:14

Lol, I'm with you as far as choice of women on a desert island Nukeboy. Maryanne is sweet, pretty, makes a great coconut creme pie, and is low-maintenance.

Maryanne??? who???

Lol,Sorry Gog,Maryanne was a character on an old('60s era) American TV show, "Gilligan's Island".

Yeah and all you guys won't admit it but you secretly really want Mrs Howell, LMAO

Actually Ang, most guys just want to make the Mrs howl,lol.

And Ginger was so flighty...;) you knew she was coming onto you only to get something..you think the rest of the castaways would wise up and..where were we?..;)
Greebles are panels, pipe fittings, antennae..basically anything that 'breaks the surface' of the spaceship..hmm..hadn't thought about that.. could be part of my problem..;)

looks very cool! the project iam working on atm has some nasty greebles in the walls. i think i will use this idea for my purpose! gets to bryce and stars making greebles thnx a million! CZ

You are most welcome CZ! I'm glad if the idea helps. :-)